


Five More Minutes

by wormonastringiantojones



Category: Doctor Who, Torchwood
Genre: Bisexual, Cardiff, Gay, M/M, janto
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-15
Updated: 2020-07-15
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:14:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25285240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wormonastringiantojones/pseuds/wormonastringiantojones
Summary: When Jack Harkness and Ianto Jones wake up in bed next to each other after a night together, they insist it would only be a one-time thing. But maybe they don't want it to be that way. Neither of the two know how to address their feelings and when they begin to bubble up inside, who will be the first to break?
Relationships: Gwen Cooper/Rhys Williams, Jack Harkness/Ianto Jones, Owen Harper/Toshiko Sato
Kudos: 14





	1. Five O'Clock

Ianto woke up gradually, surprised by the new feeling of Jack’s strong arms wrapped around his waist. Last night had left the young welshman in a state of strange euphoria. He wasn’t ready to let go of this, no matter how convincingly he’d promised to make this only a one-off. Ianto gradually relaxed back into the Captain’s hold, fully aware that he shouldn’t allow himself to get comfortable. He just couldn’t help how safe he felt in his boss’ arms. Little did he know that behind him, his lover was slowly waking too.

"Morning Mr Jones.” Jack spoke from behind Ianto, his morning voice being a lot huskier and sexier than Ianto had remembered from the night before. He did very vividly remember being called Mr Jones though. He also remembered- No, he couldn’t dwell on every little thing, it probably meant nothing to Jack.

“Captain Harkness.” Ianto smiled as he turned over on his side to face Jack. He wasn’t really sure of what the customs were for situations like this: he had just woken up in bed with the one man he’d ever wanted and his dreams were immediately crushed with the knowledge that it was only a one night stand. “I- Uh- Thank you. For last night, that is.” The words just began to fall out of his mouth before he had time to think about them.

Jack smiled softly back at Ianto, the early morning light dancing on his beautiful blue eyes. His cheekbones were perfectly chiseled, yet beautifully soft and everything inbetween. Every part of Jack’s body reminded him of another moment from their night together. “You don’t need to thank me. You made it special for me too.” Jack didn’t want to let on to how much he enjoyed it and how long Ianto had been playing on his mind, “But you know that it can’t happen again. I loved it, sure, but I can’t let it keep happening. I’ve slept with people before and it’s easy, I just don’t call them again or I leave before they wake up. With you it’s not the same Ianto.”

A small part inside Ianto hoped that Jack was hinting to him being so much more than a one night stand. A part of him wished that Jack would just turn and tell Ianto how much he loved their time together. However, that one part of him also knew that none of those things would happen. He still dreamed though. “What do you mean it’s not the same?” He pulled the covers over himself as he sat up, only now realising he hadn’t worn anything all night.

"You’re my employee. We can’t keep doing this because I have to see you every day, it’s not like I can just never call you again. You’re still young and confused. I don’t feel right taking advantage of that. Not you Ianto Jones.” Jack got out from under the sheets and started to redress himself.

Desperately, Ianto scrambled to his knees, pulling the crisp white sheets around his body as he attempted to salvage something positive from his heart being broken, “Jack please, I’m not a child. You don’t have to treat me like one! I know what I want-”

"You don’t know what you want at all Ianto, that’s the issue.” Jack pulled on more of his clothes, “I get it, I’ve been there.” As hard as this was for the both of them, he knew this was the best thing to do. Jack knew that he couldn’t get too attached and it would be easier for the both of them if they got over whatever they were feeling for each other as soon as they could.

“This is insane, you said yourself that you enjoyed last night!”

“And I did but I don’t want you to get hurt.” Jack lovingly cupped Jack’s chin, but Ianto felt mocked and pulled away harshly, “You wouldn’t be the first to be heartbroken over me” he laughed to himself but deep down he was torn by how much pain he felt over having to leave this behind. Very often Jack knew how to hide his feelings for a person, he aways knew there would be another... and another... and another. But there was something about the young welshman that kept Jack hoping for a chance with him. The whole issue with this was that Jack wanted it too bad and if he showed how hard he was clinging onto it he would be destroyed when Ianto inevitably moved on.

“Come back to bed and at least stay for an hour or two” He glanced at the clock, which read 5:00a.m.

“I need to get to work.” Jack replied matter-of-factly, hiding his conflicting emotions

“It’s five o’clock, what could you possibly need to do at five o’clock!”

“Paperwork.” He quickly pulled on his RAF jacket and left Ianto’s flat, without locking the door behind him.

Ianto quickly collapsed back down onto the bed, his chest aching from Jack’s rejection. In this moment there was nothing he wanted more than for him to have stayed and to feel Jack’s strong arms wrapped around his waist just for five more minutes.


	2. It's Not You, It's Us

Shivers shot through Ianto’s spine as he eventually climbed out of bed and onto the unforgiving cold of his bedroom floor. The hardwood flooring had always been a feature that confused him about his flat, but it was never a huge concern.

He looked across at his clock again, it was now 7 in the morning. The past two hours had gone by in what felt like the fastest and slowest two hours of his life. After Jack had left in a flash all he could bring himself to do was lie back down and stare at the ceiling – no tears or words, just silence and the plain white staring back at him. There was an unspoken pain at his core. Something about Jack leaving him without a trace of emotion or regret brought on more feelings than Ianto dare admit, to himself or anyone else.

The same as every other morning, he mindlessly wandered to his closet, his feet pattering as he took each step. Piece by piece, he pulled on one of his favourite suits – black trousers and blazer with a shirt that seemed to be a mix between a light blue and a light grey. He pulled the outfit together with a dark blue tie with white polka dots. At the time he wasn’t thinking, but this was the outfit that reminded him of Jack and that time they went Pterodactyl hunting together. Maybe that was the whole reason he felt the impulse to wear it.

It was quite some time before Ianto decided to leave his flat. Another hour had passed, during which he had made himself a cup of coffee and some toast, then sat eating it while he browsed over a few pages of the other day’s newspaper. As usual, he perfectly washed and dried every piece of crockery he had used and placed it back into the exact same space he had found it.

Upon leaving the house Ianto pulled his coat off of it’s peg next to the door and pulled it on over his suit. The weather hadn’t been this miserable so it was just his luck that the day where he needed the sunshine the most, the merciless winds and rain of Cardiff in the spring had taken over.

He placed the key into the lock to open the door. Something was wrong. Ianto attempted to gently open the lock , but it was already done. Jack. The only explanation was Jack. Jack knew about Ianto’s need to constantly ensure doors were locked, in the same way everyone had the same coffee cup in the hub or the way that all of his things had to return to the same place after he’d used them. Maybe this had been another of Jack’s thoughtless actions, maybe Ianto was reading too far into things again, but this made the numbness in him throb even harder. Another reminder of what he’d lost in the early hours of the morning.

The journey to work wasn’t as beautiful as it usually was. One of Ianto’s favourite things about being able to walk to his work, was the way that he could make his way there while hearing the joyful song of small birds and watching other members of the early mornings club on their daily commutes with him. He saw similar faces every day to the point where he’d realise if even one of them wasn’t there on any day. Obviously the rain had deterred the leisurely runner or dog walker, and Ianto was left to walk alone while battling with each droplet of rain that pelted onto him in this violent storm of a morning.

“Ianto look at the state of you! Your hair is dripping wet, and look at your trousers!” Tosh mithered around Ianto as he walked into the hub, “And you’re 45 minutes late. Gosh Ianto you’re going to have so much to explain to Jack when he gets off the phone.”

Ianto stifled a bitter laugh and managed to save himself the questions by quickly turning it to a gentle laugh aimed at Tosh behaving like his mother should, as he pulled his coat off, revealing his neatly dry suit, “See, it’s nothing too bad, the coat caught got covered in rain so the suit could survive.”

“Well hello Ianto, lovely to see you. Could’ve done with you here on time but it’s nice to see you had a nice dip in the bay before you came to us.” Owen’s london accent echoed through the hub as Ianto rolled his eyes, causing a laugh to then escape Tosh.

“Hello to you too Owen, nice to see you here before noon for a change.” Ianto shot back at him, he wasn’t prepared to take crap from anybody today, not after the ordeal he went through with Jack. Owen was caught off guard by the welshman’s almost instant riposte to his comment and went quiet, a very rare occurrence that only ever happened when the doctor had run out of ways to make himself seem big and clever yet again. A curse for him, but a blessing for the rest of the team.

After a few moments of silence, Owen spoke up again, “Make us some coffee would you, Jones.” Ianto quickly turned on his heel and made for the coffee machine, one of his favourite parts of being the effective caretaker for the Torchwood team.

“Not so fast Owen.” His eyes closed tightly tightly, the one voice he didn’t want to hear ringing out in his head was now the only one, “Ianto I need you in my office now.”

“Coming now sir.” Ianto kept his guard up as he walked up the stairs to Jack’s office for what he imagined was going to be one of the less pleasant parts of his day. As the door shut Ianto began with what he expected Jack to want to talk about, “I’m sorry I’m late, I completely lost track of time and then I had to walk all the way here while it poured down – the bottom of my trousers are soaked and my coat is drying, please just...” he sighed knowing this was getting him absolutely nowhere, while the captain simply looked upon him with a raised eyebrow, “I’m sorry, it won’t happen again sir.”

“It’s fine, I understand.” Jack sat down and watched Ianto as he stood at the other side of the desk. His voice was warmer, his face an image of absolute calm and safety. “You could’ve called me for a lift, Ianto. You didn’t have to walk here in the pouring rain.”

Once again Ianto had to fight the urge to be bitter or angry, “I mean, I just assumed that when you walked out of my flat at 5 o’clock this morning, I wouldn’t have you expecting me to call you again any time soon.”

“It never bothered you before. I told you, last night cannot affect anything between us, professional or otherwise. Do you understand me, Mr Jones.” Jack’s tone grew cold again, like it had the morning before.

“But Jack, you don’t-”

“Do you understand me!” His voice cut through anything that Ianto had to say, dismissing every word that was left in his mouth. But there was no way Ianto was going to back down this time, he couldn’t.

“I can’t just act like nothing happened though. I don’t think you fully realise how important this is to me.” His voice faltered as his emotions tried to get the better of him, “You can’t pull the rug on me now.”

“Ianto, stop it.” Jack stood up and watched the welshman’s eyes in complete silence. For a second he felt the pit of hope inside him before it was crushed once again, “I said it was a one-time thing and I mean it. This can’t happen again. Neither of us can get hurt by this.” Jack pulled his sleeves up and pulled his glance away from Ianto’s before marching out of his office.

What did he mean by ‘neither of us’? What happened to ‘you’.


	3. Who's For Coffee?

Some days if you close your eyes and think of the bigger picture, you realise how trivial your problems are. Your own relationships or fears are not the be-all and end-all of existence. When you take a step back it’s easier to negotiate your way out. Today was not one of those days for Ianto Jones. Ianto Jones knew of the many worlds and galaxies in existence, he knew that there were trillions of species that he didn’t and never would know of, he knew how even now there were millions of hearts beating and the world was still spinning at roughly one thousand miles per hour. But Ianto also knew what heartbreak felt like and he knew this was it.

He’d been stood in Jack’s office for the best part of five minutes, staring blankly down at his hands. The time and space was something that would either make or break him. Little was he aware of what was happening below him on the floor of the hub. To some extent it would be what he expected – Owen was in the medical bay, his lab coat on his shoulders as he experimented with various needles and solutions while Tosh looked at her various computer screens attempting to decipher the layers of rift activity with Jack glancing over her shoulder and commenting when he felt he’d made a breakthrough – Tosh was always polite, but anything Jack could think of, Tosh had thought about first.

Slowly, Ianto took a deep breath and made himself as composed as he possibly could be. He pushed a smile onto his face and walked back out of Jack’s office. Ianto had never been a big one for emotions and the fact that Jack could make him this way scared him more than any alien threat ever could. Emotions were overrated anyway.

“So who’s for coffee?” Ianto walked down the stairs and towards the coffee machine, followed by approving hums and polite “yes”es to his question. He looked a lot happier than he did before. It was common knowledge around the hub about what Ianto had been through and how often he faked being happy but they all knew there was nothing they could do or say to heal the wounds that time had given him. Toshiko, being the only one directly concerned about ianto, watched from afar. In her head, she wanted to go to him and try to talk to him. She so badly wanted to make everything okay for him, but was held back by Jack’s breath on the back of her neck as he kept trying to help. The restraints of Jack’s urge to constantly be “professional”.

Gwen walked in as Ianto was making drinks for the rest of the team, a to-go latte in her hand as she pulled her coat’s hood off of her head and lay it over the back of her chair. Ianto eyed up the paper cup with contempt in his eyes. “That bitch.” He muttered to himself quietly. Ianto hated people bringing other coffee into his territory.

"So what have I missed?” Gwen almost immediately made her way over to Jack and nestled herself in over the Captain’s shoulder, to both Tosh and Ianto’s dismay.

“Me and Tosh are just watching over the rift. It’s been going a bit wild over the past two days and we have no clue as to why.” Jack straightened his back to then look between Ianto making coffee and Gwen stood next to him, “What is it with you welsh and being late today?”

“Well Rhys woke me up with a brekkie in bed and I couldn’t exactly say no, could I, Jack? Imagine waking up and someone’s done something lovely for you and you just walk out the front door.” Jack and Ianto exchanged a look across the hub and Ianto pushed his feeling back inside of himself and plastered another fake smile innocently across his face. He couldn’t let Jack see that it fazed him at all. Maybe Jack would realise what he'd lost if Ianto pretended that he was okay.

Ianto managed to snatch a quick glance at his watch. “You three are going to have to collect your coffees from here, I need to get upstairs before the tourist office is supposed to open. It’s a pretty shit cover if I’m not even trying to make it seem like a tourist office isn’t it?” Ianto got halfway to the lift and turned back to the rest of the team, “You all have the same mugs as usual so don’t ask which is which.” He turned around again and made his way to the office, ready for the same routine as most days – the only member of the team with a fairly average routine.

~~~

The day passed by fairly quickly for Ianto as he stayed in his Cardiff tourist office for the whole day. He assumed the rift was staying fairly stable and therefore everybody downstairs in the hub would be completeing paperwork just like he was, along with reading a few magazines and newspapers along the way.

It got to 5pm and the tourist office was ready to close, so Ianto made his way from behind his desk and began to do his usual nightly routine – locking the door and laying the papers neatly behind the desk ready for him to come back to the next day. Finally, he turned off the light and made his way back into the hub where everyone else would be. It took him by no surprise to see everybody completing their own individual tasks, with Jack and Gwen in Jack’s office doing what he could only assume was discussing work.

As he walked past Toshiko’s desk, she gently took hold of his sleeve and pulled him over to look at the computer, trying to appear as professional as possible, “Is everything okay, Ianto? It seemed a bit tense in here earlier and I was just wondering if you’re okay. We saw the way Jack shouted and I don’t know...” Tosh began to realise how her words were coming out and worried about upsetting Ianto even more than he may have been.

“Everything’s fine, he just wansn’t happy about me being late, that’s all. I get it, I’m usually one of the first here so it must’ve been a shock.” He laughs but it is suddenly stifled by him seeing a red dot on Tosh’s aerial map of Cardiff, “What’s that?”

“It looks like...” Tosh quickly typed something into her keyboard and zoomed in on the red dot, “A weevil. You up for some hunting?”


End file.
